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ORATION 



DELIVEREP BEFORE THE 



CITY AUTHORITIES OF BOSTON, 



FOURTH OF JULY, 1866, 



REV. S. K. LOTimOP, D. D. 




BOSTON: 

ALFRED MUDGE & SON, CITY PRINTERS, 31 SCHOOL STREl^T. 

1 8 6 G. 



t— A 6 (a 












CITY OF BOSTON. 



In Common Council, July 5, 1866. 

Resolved : That the thanks of the City Council are due and 
they arc hereby tendered to Rev. Samuel K. Lothrop, D. D., 
for the eloquent and patriotic Oration delivered by him before 
the Municipal Authorities of Boston on the occasion of the 
XCth anniversary of the Declaration of American Independ- 
ence; and that he be requested to furnish a copy of said 
Oration for publication. 

Sent up for concurrence. 

JOHN C. HAYNES, Pres. pro tern. 



Concurred. 



In Board of Aldermen, July 7, 1866. 
G. W. MESSINGER, Chairman. 

Approved July 7, 1866. 

F. W. LINCOLN, Jr., Mayor. 



ORATION. 



Mr. Mayor, Gentlemen of the Ciiy Council^ Friends 
and Fellow- Citizens : 

My words may be dull, but the occasion has an 
eloquence of its own ; my thoughts may be feeble, 
but the day clusters with memories, associations and 
hopes that should give it power and make it an 
inspu-ation to our hearts. Patriotism is an instinct 
of humanity. Whether it be amid the snows of Lap- 
land or the arid deserts of Arabia, wherever, what- 
ever it may be, barren or beautiful, every man 
loves his country, and every true man is ready to 
live and labor, to toil, sacrifice, suffer, and, if 
need be, to die for his country. But we, of all 
people, should love our country ; our patriotism has 
so much to sustain it, that it should be not simply 
an instinct, but a principle ; a deep conviction of 
the judgment as well as a warm emotion of the 
heart. We have a glorious past, a grand though 

troubled present, and a future rich in such hopes 

1* 



b JULY 4, 1866. 

and promises as never before invited the energies, 
or met the honest, pure, noble ambition of any 
people. Nay, our patriotism should find its founda- 
tion and nourishment in religious faith, — faith in 
God, faith in humanity, and faith in those great 
principles of liberty and love, with which Christianity, 
for eighteen centuries, has been striving to impreg- 
nate the heart of the world, and which, under the 
providence of God, have here a grander opportu- 
nity for development, expansion and application than 
was ever offered them before. 

History is the unfolding of God's thought, the de- 
velopment of his purpose. Its epochs are the foot- 
prints of the Almighty on the sands of time. In 
our land, and in all that relates to it, these foot- 
prints are so distinct and impressive that we must 
be infidel indeed, if we do not mark and stud) 
them with reverence and gratitude. 

The hand of God in our country, the tokens of 
his benignant purpose to protect and advance in it 
the interests of liberty and humanity, is a theme 
for whose details volumes would be required ; the 
few paragraphs of an oration can oidy sketcli the 
outline. 

It begins with the discovery of America, which 
was so wonderfully opportune in time, that mc no 



OBATION. • < 

longer ask why the Western Hemisphere was kept 
concealed for so many ages from the Eastern, the 
imtravelled waters of the Atlantic rolling between 
them. Had the discovery been made a few centuries 
earlier, the semi-barbarous institutions and feudalism 
of the Old World would have been transplanted in 
their vigor to the New, and social America would 
have been little more than a reproduction of social 
Europe. Had the discovery been delayed a few 
centuries, the new ideas and principles in regard 
to religious and civil liberty, government, society, 
man, the Gospel in all its applications, which the 
Reformation called forth, would, in all human proba- 
bility, have had but a short-lived, struggling exist- 
ence. Confined to Europe, they would have been 
strangled, crushed, put down and kept down by 
those influences of habit and custom, of civil and 
ecclesiastical power, which have there opposed their 
progress, and so long prevented their legitimate re- 
sults, — the enfranchisement and elevation of humanity. 
Well may we bow in adoring faith before that be- 
neficent Providence, which so ordered it, that just 
when it was most needed, when the Reformation 
broke the slumbers of Europe and stirred its commu- 
nities, as' they have never been stirred before, to 
intense intellectual, moral and social activity, then 



O JULY 4, 18GG. 

this new continent, discovered, less than half a century 
before, offered to this activity a new and fair field ; 
and the new ideas and principles, which in Europe, 
overborne in the struggle with long established insti- 
tutions, ' and hereditary organizations, forms and 
usages, would here have failed to work out any grand 
results upon a great scale, found here, on the virgin 
soil and comparatively unoccupied territory of this 
new world, an opportunity for untrammelled devel- 
opment, — a development which for more than two 
centuries has steadily increased, giving impulse and 
progress to humanity, producing results which form 
one of the grandest and most interesting chapters in 
the history of our race, and sending back upon the 
Old World influences, which have been and vvill be 
more and more salutary and beneficial. 

If ever civil and religious liberty, — that boon 
winch every man craves for himself and eveiy noble 
man would accord to others, — if ever that great, 
iutelligtnit, res])ousible freedom, which, through the 
gospel and tlie spirit of the Lord, comes to the 
soul of man, is to prevail over the earth, if it 
is ever to maintain a strong foothold among the 
nations, it will be because, at the hour of its 
utmost need, God gave it opportunity to ])lant itself 
on this new continent, and strike its roots so deep 



oBATioN. y 

that no despotic power could tear them up, no 
storm of passion and folly blight the blossoms, or 
destroy the fruit of the tree. 

Beginning thus with the auspicious time of the dis- 
covery of our country, i\\Q wonderful workings of a 
wise and merciful Providence may be traced all 
through the infancy, the growth and progress of every 
colony established therein from Maine to Georgia. 
In the planting of the Plymouth colony, — where a 
few noble men and high-souled women stepped upon 
a low, shapeless rock, against which the waves of 
the Atlantic had beaten for centuries, and the world 
knew not of it and cared not for it, and by their toils 
and tears, their sufferings and sacrifices, made that 
rock to become one of the sacred spots of earth, 
hallowed by the noblest memories and grandest re- 
sults, — there may be more of romance, more of thrill- 
mg incident and wonderful achievement, than in that 
of some of the others ; but these elements so abound 
in all, that, if we have faith as a grain of mustard 
seed, our hearts must prompt us to recognize and 
adore a divine purpose and providence, wonderfully 
manifested in the events connected with the early 
settlement and colonization of our country, till we 
come down to that great epoch in its history, of 
which this day is the commemoration. 



10 JULY 4, 18G6. 

Mr. Mayor and fellow-citizens, I need not dwell 
upon the principles, nor recite the incidents of that 
solemn and sublime struggle of our fiithers for 
independence, in the success of which we gather 
here at this hour, citizens of this free Common- 
wealth, mheritors in this grand republic. These 
principles have entered into the education of oiu* 
people for generations. These incidents are written 
in our histories, taught in our schools, graven upon 
our memories, familiar as household W'Ords upon our 
lips. But it was a glorious struggle. It was an 
appeal to arms, to the God of battles, as necessary 
and as justifiable as it was triumphant. That was 
not a rebellion, any of whose authors felt con- 
strained to acknowledge, that the government from 
which they would separate, and so far overtlii'ow, 
was the wisest, the best, the most paternal and 
beneficent ever instituted. That was not a rebel- 
lion Avhose success was to put limitations upon 
liberty, and give extension and a deep, terrible per- 
manence to slavery. That was not a rebellion 
so utterly without cause, in any grievance endured, 
or oppression exercised, that its instigators or authori- 
ties never made, and never dared attempt to make, 
any public proclamation to the world of the wrongs 
they had to redi'ess, of the rights they would vindi- 



OBATIOX. 11 

cate, or of the sphit and purpose of the new nation- 
ahty they woukl establish. No, it was not such 
a rebellion. That grave, calm, solemn document, 
which our fathers put forth ninety years ago to-day, 
and which has just been so admirably read to us this 
morning, — that document, its preliminary utterances, 
rightly understood and interpreted, not " glittermg 
generalities, " but solid, substantial and everlasting 
verities, having their foundations in that eternal 
justice, which is older than all institutions, and 
anterior to all governments save that of God, — that 
document, its recital of facts so true in letter and 
spirit, as to defy refutation or denial, — that docu- 
ment, which at once assumed and will forever hold 
its place, as one of the most important historic 
documents of the world, the natural and legitimate 
child of that Magna Charta of England, which 
England violated and trampled upon when she 
attempted to oppress and subject us, — that docu- 
ment — the Declaration of Independence, vindicates 
our fathers to the judgment, while its successful 
maintenance secures to them the admiration and 
gratitude of mankind. 

It was a glorious struggle, just in its origin, 
noble m its purpose, grand in its success, grander 
because that success was a triumph over the 



12 JULY 4, 18G6. 

prowess of England, — the most signal defeat to 
her power, the greatest loss to her possessions she 
ever sustained. Never, before or since, have any of 
her colonies or territorial possessions succeeded in 
throwing off her yoke. It has been attempted in 
India, in Canada and the West Indies, and the 
attempts have failed. "NVlierever, in any quarter of 
the globe, England gets a foothold, plants her 
standard and erects her forts, there she holds on 
against all intruders and against all revolt; and it 
is true to-day as of yore — " her drum-beat 
follows the sun, and may be heard all around 
the earth." In addition to her large colonial terri- 
tories, or in connection with them, she holds 
some of the most important and salient points 
of the globe in either hemisphere. It is, and 
has ever been her policy to seek possession of such, 
— a policy which the commercial and political inter- 
ests of this country, especially on our Western coast, 
and in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, demand that 
our government should withstand by all just and 
honorable means. Twenty-five or thirty years ago, it 
was supposed that ocean steam - navigation would 
cripple the maritime power of England ; but it has 
largely increased it, because England alone, — luigland 
to a greater extent than any other nation, — that all 



OB AT 10 X. 13 

but omnipresent power whose centre is London, can 
send her merchant or war -steamers into all the 
waters of the globe, and everywhere coal at her 
own ports, beneath the shadow of her own flag 
and the protection of her own guns, — an advantage 
she will not fail to hold, to use exclusively for 
herself when she needs, — to extend when she can. 
It was a glorious struggle, the revolutionary strug- 
gle of our fathers, and a signal defeat and loss to 
power of Great Britain. But the point, I wish to 
make, is the testimony it affords to a benign purpose 
on the part of the L)i^•ine Providence towards this 
land, and the interests and progress of humanity as 
connected with it. In the general aspects of the 
struggle, there are three particulars worthy of especial 
notice in this connection. First, the quick and thor- 
ough union of the colonies, when the hour for forci- 
ble resistance arrived, and the stern appeal to arms 
had to be made. Here were thirteen colonics, three 
millions of people, — a sparse population, a vast 
territory, with none of the modern facilities for 
personal intercourse, the diffusion of information, 
or for concert of action. Single, isolated rebellion 
on the part of any or all of these colonies would 
have been a f\iilure. It would have been sj^eedily 
crushed. By a wise foresight oiu- fathers were led 



14 JULY i, 186G. 

to provide iigainst this ; and suddenly, through means 
whose suggestion and efficacy seem wonderfully provi- 
dential, the thirteen became a unit, with a general 
Congress, and iVrticles of Confederation strong enough 
to carry them through as long and severe a struggle, 
as liberty ever exacted of her champions. 

This point is important in another aspect. No one 
of these colonies, in the exercise of individual sover- 
eignty, declared itself independent of Great Britain, or 
undertook in its own name to be, or to set up a new 
nationality on the earth. As' colonies they Avere 
subject to Great Britain ; as revolting colonies they 
instantly became united, and within eight and forty 
hours after the fii'st blow of armed resistance was 
struck at Lexington, troops from more than one of 
these colonies were acting in concert in the siege of 
this city. As colonies uniting in revolt, they passed 
into a confederacy of States, and thus made to Eng- 
land and to the world their " Declaration of Indepen- 
dence ;" and from a Confederacy of States they passed 
under the Constitution into a Union, not of the States, 
but of the people: — "We, the people of the United 
States, do ordain and establish this Constitution, which, 
with the laws and treaties formed under it, shall be the 
supreme law of the land, anything in any State consti- 
tution or legislation to the contrary notwithstanding." 



OBATIOX. 15 

Not for an hour has any one of these States been 
an independent State, universally known and rec- 
ognized among the nations in its exercise of the 
rights of absolute sovereignty. At first the most 
important of these rights vested in Great Britain ; 
then they were assumed, I had almost said, rather 
than transferred to the Continental Congress ; and 
then, by a grand and solemn act of the people, they 
were committed to a Federal or National govern- 
ment, under the Constitution of the United States. 
The most important right of absohite sovereignty 
these Colonies or States ever exercised was to part 
with that sovereignty, and confer its highest and most 
essential attributes upon a central or Federal au- 
thority, that by union that might become great, re- 
spectable and strong before the world, which, in its 
separate parts, would remain insignificant and power- 
less. This seems to be the historic fact, — that no 
one of these States has ever been an independent, 
absolute sovereignty, — and this fact seems to have 
an important bearing upon that doctrine of " State 
rights" and "the sovereignty of the States" which 
since 1798 has been the bane of our internal polit- 
ical action. This doctrine was the essential germ of 
our recent civil war, whose fruits, in this instance. 



16 JULY 4, 18G6. 

that war has crushed, but, as was to be expected, 
has not entirely eradicated or destroyed the germ 
itself. God forbid that it should have life enough 
to revive, and unfold into another rebellion. 

The second signal feature, in the revolutionary 
struggle of our fiithers, was their indomitable energy 
and perseverance, amid tremendous discouragements, 
at a cost of large sacrifices, painful sufferings and 
privations. Here I will not detain you with details, 
nor attempt to give you pictures of that, wdiich has 
so often been portrayed by the masters of patriotic 
eloquence. We all know, that upon any compari- 
son of means, men, money, munitions and instru- 
mentalities of war of all kinds, the struggle seemed 
hopeless at the beginning ; and often and often, at 
the end of many a campaign during those seven long 
years, the fortunes of oiu- fathers seemed dark and 
utterly desperate. But they did not and would not 
give it up ; their enthusiasm kindled afresh after 
every disaster and defeat; their small resources, often 
apparently exhausted, failed not to offer fresh sup- 
plies when called for; their bold confronting, year 
after year, all the ])()W(>r and policy of England, 
reached at last that sublime, unselfish, indomitable, 
moral heroism, which always conquers because it must 



OBATION. 17 

conquer, and which at length compelled England to 
acknowledge that the brightest jewel of her crown 
was gone, and that these United States were a 
power no longer subject to her control. 

How shall I speak of the third signal and pro- 
vidential feature in that great revolutionary strug- 
gle of our fathers ? — their great Leader, wonderful 
beyond all comparison in the intellectual and moral 
combinations that formed his character, the Pro^'iden- 
tial ]\lan, raised up to carry them forward through 
transcendent difficulties to a grand success, and adorn 
tlieu" records with the most glorious and unspotted 
name in all human history. Niagara stands alone, 
umivalled among the cataracts of earth, and man 
might as w^ll attempt to create it, as by pen or 
pencil to give an adequate description or impression 
of it. Thus AVashington stands so unrivalled in the 
combinations of his life, character and career — as 
fortunate as he was great, and as good as he was 
great and fortunate — that one might as well under- 
take to create as to describe him. I shall not 
attempt it ; but this I may say, that the more I 
read history, the more I study biography, the 
more I contemplate human nature, and aim to form 
correct moral estimates of men, the more the char- 
acter of Washington, in its glorious beauty, in the 



18 JULY 4, 1S6G. 

august sublimity of its splendid combinations, looms up 
before my imagination, my feelings and my judgment, 
as the grandest to be found in the authentic records 
of our race, save those records, short and simple, 
that contain the glorious gospel of the Son of God. 

Does any one maintain that in the raising up of 
such a man, to be the leader of our fathers in 
their revolutionary struggle, to be the model, guide, 
and inspiration in all coming time, to the new 
development and progress, which humanity is 
to make on this continent, he sees nothing won- 
derfully providential; that in all this struggle, he 
finds no special token of a benignant j)TU-pose of 
the Almighty, in regard to the interests of liberty 
and humanity in this land, I can only answer, 
that I envy not the coldness or the scepti- 
cism of his heart, which seems be wanting in 
the great element of faith, — foith in the invisible, 
the spiritual and the eternal, which has ever been 
one of the noblest attributes of the noblest minds. 
Most persons will recognize, and delight to recognize, 
the hand of God in that glorious Revolutionary 
struggle of our fathers, Avhose importance can never 
diminish, and the memory of which can ne^'er die. 
It was the first stern conflict between the despotism 
of the Old World and the liberty of the Xew. 



OR ATI ox. 19 

In that conflict liberty triumphed, lifting up our 
country " from impending servitude to acknowledged 
independence ; " and that triumph should stand before 
us to-day as " the Lord's doing, marvellous in our 
eyes," a testimony to his gracious purpose to pro- 
mote the interests and progress of humanity in our 
land, and throughout the world. 

And that testimony abides ; it abounds all through 
the record of our wonderful prosperity and progress, 
since the conclusion of that struggle. The formation 
and adoption of the Constitution of the United 
States afford an im]iressive illustration of this. All 
human instruments have something of weakness and 
defect, stamping their origin. It is easier to 
destroy than to create, to find fault than to make 
perfect ; and the Constitution of the United States 
never has been, is not now, never will be beyond 
the reach of ol)jection. But when we calmly review 
the state of the country, after the close of the 
war of independence; when we contemplate all the 
circumstances of the times, the necessities that re- 
quired, and the obstacles that stood in the way of a 
stronger government than the old confederacy, all 
the diverse rights, interests, opinions, prejudices, 
that had to be harmonized; then the Constitution 
stands before us w^onderful in its penetrating and 



20 JULY 4, 18GG. 

comprehensive sagacity, its all-embracing political 
wisdom ; an instrument of civil organization and 
government so perfect, that could there always 
have been found an integrity adequate to its 
just, dispassionate and impartial administration, it 
would, of necessity, have made the people living 
under it as happy and prosperous as the limitations 
of earth permit. 

Wonderful in its formation, its adoption ulti- 
mately by the people of all the States, so different 
in character and population, and so widely sev- 
ered, is even more wonderful than its formation ; 
and when we look at the great general results 
produced by this Constitution, observe how imme- 
diately it brought prosj^erity and power, raised our 
country from a feeble to a mighty nation, ga^e it 
a name and an influence over all the earth ; when 
we consider how it has conferred upon many millions 
of people such blessings, comforts, privileges, oppor- 
tunities, as no government ever conferred before 
upon a like number, making our land such an 
" oasis in the desert " of the world, that for half 
a century past, emigrants from other countries have 
thronged to it, as they ne\'er thronged to any land 
before; finding here a security, a happiness, and an 
opportunity they could find no^vllere else on earth, 



OBATION. 21 

— when wc consider tlicse things, the formation 
and adoption of the Constitution of the United 
States are events so wonderful, so extraordinary 
upon any calcuhition of human probabihties, that 
we are justified, nay, constrained to regard them as 
such an overruling of Providence, such tokens of 
a benignant protection of liberty in this land, that 
they should not only quicken and invigorate our 
patriotism, but give to it something of the sanctity 
and power of religious faith. 

But all will admit, probably, that the most impres- 
sive evidence and exhibition of an overruling Provi- 
dence, -in the history of our country, is its present 
condition, and the terrible scenes and the great 
crisis, through which we have just passed in our 
recent civil war. 

The origin and responsibility of this war rest not 
exclusivelv Avith the men of this o-cneration. At lono- 
intervals, years ago, the differing seeds from which 
it sprung were planted. The first planting was at 
Plymouth in 16 '20, when our fathers made there 
the first permanent lodgement of liberty in the land. 
The second, by a singular coincidence, was in the 
same year, when a Dutch man-of-war entered James 
River, with some Africans on board who were sold 
as slaves, and thus, in ^^u-ginia, the first germ of 



22 JULY 4, 18C6. 

Slavery took root on Anglo- American soil. The third 
planting was in 1776, when a committee of the 
Continental Congress at Philadelphia, with ^Ir. Jef- 
ferson at its head, made that grand declaration, that 
" all men " — " all " — had certain inalienable rights, 
of wliich no government conld innocently deprive 
them. The fourth and last planting was in 1787, 
when the Constitution of the United States, that 
instrument, so glorious in other respects, under- 
took, in singular inconsistency with its Preamble, 
to join together, in peaceful fellowship, inider 
one government. Liberty and Slavery. The thing 
was impossible ; and in this particular, though 
not in its general spirit and purpose, the Con- 
stitution A\as a failure. 

A conflict l)etween Liberty and Slavery existing 
under one government, among one people, was inevi- 
table, " irre])ressible." It begun early, it lasted long. 
It may be traced all tlirough our national legislation 
and policy ; and in tlie legislation of the last twenty 
years, there are so many, and such violent and wan- 
ton encroachments of Sla\'(>ry upon Liberty, that one 
is almost tem})ted to tliiidv, (tliougli no ])ositiA'c proof 
thereof in letters or speeches could be found.) that 
the hope, if not the pur])ose and ])olicy of tlu^ lead- 
ers and advocates of Slaverv, was to i;'oad and drive 



3 y? V/vT 



OBATION. 23 

the North to the initiation of rebelhon, that thus 
they might phice themselves before the workl, in the 
light of loyal defenders of an existing Government 
and Constitution. 

Though not disposed to uphold or approve all 
that was said and done at the North, I am disposed 
to maintain that the admission of Texas, by a 
gross and palpable violation of constitutional pro- 
visions ; the Mexican war, unnecessarily precipitated 
upon the country by an invasion of territory of which, 
to say the least, it was doubtful whether it belonged 
to Texas, and the consecpient acquisition of large addi- 
tions to the area of slavery ; some of the odious 
and arbitrary features unnecessarily introduced into 
the Fugitive Slave Bill ; the miserably contemptible, 
as well as wicked legislation in regard to Kansas, 
and finally the repeal of the ]\Iissouri Compromise, — 
that these were such violations and encroachments 
upon the rights, interests and progress of liberty on 
this Continent, as, combined, afforded to the free 
States a more justifiable cause for revolt, rebellion, 
revolution, than the so-called Confederate States can 
ever declare and make good before the world. 

But the people of the free States would not rebel. 
They felt that under a popular representative gov- 
ernment, where the will of the people, legitimately 



24 JULY 4, 18G6. 

expressed, is the controlling force that ultimately 
accomplishes all that ought to be done, armed 
resistance is almost never necessary or justifiable. 
Liberty, also, which loves order and obeys law to 
the utmost, was willing to bide its time, and trust 
its existence and progress to the UTesistible logic of 
truth and principle. This logic prevailed more and 
more, till at length the Republican party was or- 
ganized. According to its original platforms, this 
party did not propose to distiu'b slavery where it 
existed, but simply to restrict its power and preva- 
lence to the limits it had ah'eady reached, — limits 
whose resources it had not exhausted, but where, 
as an industrial institution, it still had room for an 
indefinite expansion. 

This party, after one or two defeats, triumphed 
in the national election of 18G(), and raised Abra- 
ham Lincoln to the chief magistracy of the nation. 
I need not attempt the eulogy of this man's 
character or career. At the instance of our 
C/ity (iovernmcnt, this has already been done by 
abler hands than mine. That he was a person of 
peculiar talents, admirable wisdom, perfect honesty, 
and pure, disinterested purpose, will, I presume, be 
admitted by all. The growing dcAclopments of his 
personal character while in ofhce, his public policy 



on AT I ON. 25 

under circumstances of as deep perplexity, painful 
anxiety, and involving issues of as g-igantie impor- 
tance as ever embarrassed the head of any nation, 
and his untimely death at the hand of violence, 
making him at once the champion and the martyr 
of liberty, these invest his name and fame with 
such attributes of gloom and glory, that we become 
at once sad and reverent as we speak of him. 
There can be little doubt that as years roll on, 
dissipating the mists of passion, and leading to a 
clearer appreciation, the historic judgment of the 
nation and of the world will lil't him up to a 
high place among the providential men of the race; 
A\ill place him near to Washington, as the second 
deliverer and Father of his country, — less fortunate 
in his personal fate, but thoroughly wise, honest, disin- 
terested, patriotic, worthy of oiu' gratitude and our 
reverence. 

His election was the signal for the weak work 
of secession, and the wicked work of rebellion and 
revolution, to begin. This work, in its successive 
steps, in its widening progress, in its final issue, 
abounds with testimonies to the purpose of the 
Almighty Providence to protect and advance the 
interests of liberty and humanity in oiu* country, and 
thereby throughout the world. The very neglects 



26 JULY 4, 18G6. 

which we condemned, the very misfortunes and de- 
feats, which five years ago we regretted, have all 
contributed to fulfil this purpose. 

There can be no question that durmg the summer 
and autumn of 1860, the President of the United 
States, with the mutterings of the coming storm in 
his cars, and the shadow of its dark cloud resting 
upon the close of his administration, had he listened 
to the suggestions of the late Lieutenant- General, 
Winfield Scott, — that glorious old soldier, as wise 
and patriotic as he was brave, — might have quietly 
put all the forts on the Southern coast in such condi- 
tion, and so disposed of the military and naval 
force of the United States, that secession, like nul- 
lification, woidd have reached only to a paper 
ordinance, perhaps not to that, and armed rebellion 
would never have raised its bloody hand. 

If England in the spring of 1861, instead of being 
swift through her Secretary for Foreign Affairs to 
speak of the " late " United States, and grant bellig- 
erent rights to the rebels, and thus encourage her 
people to furnish them with munitions of war and 
supplies of all kinds, had, true to her interest and 
honor, as well as her professed abhorrence of slavery, 
expressed her sympathy with the constitutional gov- 
ernment of the United States, and her de tormina- 



ORATION. 27 

tion to stand by it in the struggle, there can be no 
doubt that the resources of the so-called Confederacy 
would have been exhausted at a very early day. 

And if, in that first great battle of the conflict at 
Bull Run, in July 1861, the Union arms had con- 
quered, and we had di'iven the rebels back to Rich- 
mond, or beyond it, to the selection of some other 
spot to be its temporary capital, probably hundreds 
and hundreds of thousands of persons in the South- 
ern States, who up to that hour had hesitated 
between rebellion and loyalty, would have decided in 
favor of the latter, and the Union sentiment at the 
South, feelmg secure of protection, would have de- 
clared itself so strongly, that the rebellion and its 
confederacy would have collapsed before the expira- 
tion of its fu-st year. 

But this immediate or early suppression of the 
rebellion Avould have left the nation just where it 
was before, — the cause of strife uni'emoved, una- 
bated ; it would have stanched the blood, salved 
over the wound, but left the virus within to poison 
the system, to work disease and decay, to bring on, 
at some other time, in some other form, another 
death-struggle for national liberty and life. He, who 
preside th over the nations, had a broader and more 



28 JULY 4, 18G6. 

benignant purpose, and His overruling is legibly 
written upon the wliole course of the conflict. 

This conflict, — initiated by the rebel leaders for an 
independent confederacy, that should give permanence 
and power to slavery, and entered into by the 
government of the United States after patient reluc- 
tance, originally not to disturb slavery, but to main- 
tain its own authority over a territory and people, 
who had no sufficient cause for revolt, and whose 
obedient allegiance it might rightfully claim, — 
this conflict went on, widening the range of its 
operations, unfolding more and more distinctly the 
good and evil principles, the sources of weakness 
and of strength involved in it, and presenting 
more and more clearly, also, the issues that 
must be reached in order to a permanent peace ; 
till at length the Avay was prcjiared, opportunity 
came, necessity demanded, and the President of the 
United States, in the exercise of tliat august war- 
power which the Constitution lodged in his hands, 
with all due ([ualiflcations and formalities, made the 
proclamation emancipating all the slaves in the rebel 
States. 

This important measure was at flrst received 
with regret and surprise by some; but it is now, I 



OB ATI on: 29 

believe, everywhere, at home and abroad, by every 
thoughtful person, regarded as just and wise ; officially 
a right, and morally a brave and noble act. To have 
made that proclamation earlier would have been a 
mistake ; to have delayed it longer would have been 
a crime, — a crime against the Union whose preserva- 
tion demanded, whose Constitution authorized it, — a 
crime agamst liberty and humanity which so earn- 
estly plead for it. Followed as it soon was by the 
enlistment of colored troops, and by amendments of 
the Constitution abolishing slavery, legitimately passed 
by Congress and adopted by the required number 
of States, this proclamation may now be regarded 
as the thunder-bolt, beneath which the rebel confed- 
eracy staggered to its fall, while to us, like the 
fiery column to the Israelites of old, it was " a 
burning and a shining light," beneath whose guiding 
glow the Union, victorious at every point through 
its moral as well as physical strength, with erect 
mien and manly confidence, walked forward to a 
triumphant peace, to glory and permanence. 

IVIr. Mayor and fellow-citizens : Distance is said 
to lend enchantment to the view, but it is also 
necessary to give correctness to the vision ; we are 
too near to our late civil war to judge of it cor- 
rectly in all its events and proportions. In five years 



30 JULY i, 18GG. 

wc have m-^de a history which, only at the close 
of fifty years, can be fo fully and accurately written, 
as to be in all particulars thoroughly understood 
and justly appreciated. 

But there are some f\xcts and principles in rela- 
tion to it that we can understand, and they are 
worthy of a moment's notice. It was at once the 
most gigantic civil w^ar on record, — and the 
shortest. The Peloponnesian war was virtually a 
civil war, corresponding in some particidars to ours. 
The States of Greece, represented in the Am- 
phictyonic council, were bound together by various 
tic^s of nationality, which would have been closer 
and f tronger, save that an idea, expressed by a 
diffei'ent word but similar to our idea of State 
sovereignty, kept them apart and led to their ruin, 
through a war which, interrupted by a sliort truce, 
lasted twenty-seven years. This war was important 
in its influence upon the fortunes of (Greece, and 
upon the civilization and progress of the world ; 
but in itself it was confined to a territory not much 
larger than one of our large States ; and the greatest 
number, which either side ever brought into the 
field in any one campaign, was sixty thousand men, 
and never in any one battle were so many as these 
engaged on one side. 



OBATION. 31 

The great civil war, under various leaders with 
mingled fortunes, through which Home passed from 
a Republic to an Empire, lasted twenty years. In 
the first great battle of this struggle, at Pharsalia, 
between Ca?sar and Pompey, the whole number in 
both armies, very unequally divided, did not reach 
to eighty thousand men ; and in its last, at Actium, 
between Anthony and Octavius Cuesar, though about 
one hundred thousand men were assembled on either 
side, only a very small portion of these were actually 
brought into the conflict. The Roman Empire at 
this time contained three times the population of 
the United States ; yet the great military captain, 
Julius CcEsar, who for a brief period was master 
of it, never commanded in person, at one point, so 
many men as were m some of our army corps. 
The glorious civil war in England, known as the 
" Great Rebellion," by which free constitutional gov- 
ernment became the boon of the Anglo-Saxon race 
everywhere, lasted seven years ; yet the largest army 
that either King or Parliament had in the field 
during this struggle did not exceed twenty-five thou- 
sand men. Cromwell's broad fame, as a military 
commander, rests upon a few battles and campaigns, 
conducted in a comparatively small area of territory, 
and with a force seldom exceeding twenty thousand 



32 JULY 4, 1866. 

men, — about as many as served for Sherman's ad- 
vance-guard of " bummers " in his grand march 
throu"h Georo'ia and the CaroHnas. The combined 
armies of CcEsar and Pompey, disputing the empire 
of the world, were less than the quota which some 
of our large States sent into the field in our re- 
cent struggle ; and this little State of jNIassachusetts 
furnished more troops than Julius Ccesar ever com- 
manded, more than all Greece brought together in 
the long struggle that rent her in pieces ; more than 
fought on both sides in the great English Rebellion. 
And what is the explanation of this contrast? 
Simply this, I conceive. Ours was a war of the 
people and for the people, their liberties and their 
progress against an oligarchy. Even the English 
Rebellion, though liberty was promoted by it, was 
in a great measure a war of oligarchies, a struggle 
between titled and \ui-titled land owners, for place 
and ])owcr ; and the great nWA wars of the Roman 
triumvirates were Avars between oligarchies, struggles 
between patrician leaders, Avho could gather no more 
troops than they could pay by plunder, confiscation 
and robberv. 'J'he long and fatal contest in (jrccce 
Avas between ])atrician leaders and States, some of 
whom, Athens, for instance, had only sixty thousand 
freemen from whom to enlist her soldiers, Avliile 



OB AT I ox. 33 

she had four hundred thousand slaves, whom she 
did not dare to arm for the contest. Ours, on 
the contrary, was a w^ar of and for the people. 
Not a w\ar which the government constrained the 
people to wage and support, but one which the 
people constrained the government to wage for its 
own protection and their liberties, in behalf of a 
country Avliich they loved, and of institutions and 
principles which they cherished with national pride 
and filial reverence. Hence when the call came, 
they sprang to arms by the half-million, gloried in 
what may be called a self-imposed taxation, and 
poured out theu* blood and treasiu'e without stint, 
and thus made it at once the most gigantic and 
shortest civil war on record. 

We can understand that it was a war of conflictins: 
ideas and principles, which in its progress unfolded 
more and more the character of these principles, 
their healthful or baneful influence upon the mind 
and heart of man. It was a war between Liberty 
and Slavery, the records of which are full of dis- 
closures, which tell in behalf of liberty as a grand 
ennobling principle, and put a darker and deeper 
shadow upon slavery as barbarous and brutalizing. 

All w^ar is bad, subjecting men to such evil 
influences, that nothing but stern necessity could lead 



34 JULY 4, 186G. 

a thoughtful man to uphold it; and I do not intend 
to urge that all that the government, troops, people 
and press of the North did and said, during our recent 
struggle, is to be unqualifiedly approved. Undoubt- 
edly there are things that we must regret and con- 
demn. Nor do I mean to say that there is nothing, 
absolutely nothing, in the rebel record that we can 
approve ; no acts of courtesy, or nobleness, or mag- 
nanimity, such as call forth our admiration even 
for a foe. Undoubtedly there are many such. But 
there is nothing in our record of which we need 
be ashamed ; while there are things in rebel record 
which the world will forever condemn. There 
is nothing in our record like Belle Isle, the Libby, 
Andersonville, Salisbury, Fort Pillow, or Fort Wag- 
ner ; nothing like the attempt to fii-e Northern 
cities and bring indiscriminate suffering, destruc- 
tion of property, poverty, death, upon men, women 
and children ; nothing which gives the shadow 
of a shade of color for such a charge against 
any one, as that which the President of the United 
States has ventured to bring against the head of 
the late Confederate Government, — complicity with 
assassination and murder. 

Our record is a glorious record in behalf of the 
nature, character, and influences of liberty, — glori- 



OBATIOX. 35 

ous ill the reluctance with which the National 
Government unsheathed the sword of war, and 
in the spirit in which she used it, — glorious 
in the skill and military genius displayed by 
oiu- generals, and in the bravery, the sacrifices 
and the patriotic devotedness of our troops, and 
in their general character and conduct as men as 
well as soldiers, — glorious in the general spirit and 
action of our people, in their Sanitary Commissions, 
their Christian Commissions, their Freedmen's Relief 
Associations, in all the noble efforts of the women 
of the country, and in the thousand Florence 
Nightingales, who, without the meed of world-wide 
fame and honor, humbly, quietly, m the self-sacri- 
ficing spirit of a loyal patriotism and a womanly 
tenderness, went forth to mstruct the ignorant in 
schools, to nurse the sick and comfort the dying 
ui hospitals. Oiu's is a glorious record ; and not 
denying any thing there may be good and glorious 
in the record of the Confederacy, so called, the 
two records, taken as a whole, hold up to us two 
forms, two portraits, drawn, as it were, by an 
almighty artist, in living lineaments, — one Liberty, 
an angel of light to benefit and bless, — the other 
Slavery, a demon of wrath to curse and destroy, 
not so much those upon whom she fastens her 



36 JULY 4, 18GG. 

ft- 

fetters, as those to whom she grants her privileges 
and. her power. 

The nation and the world needed these por- 
traits. They will be stndied long and mnch ; then* 
instruction will he heeded, and their influence felt, 
for many centuries. The war was a conflict of 
principles ; and the whole exhibition of the con- 
flict and its results seem so clear and immediate a 
revelation of the divine will and law in regard to 
slavery, as to make it absurd to appeal to one or 
two obscure passages in the Bible, written in the 
infancy of the world, and insist that these are to 
be interpreted to the support of slavery as a divine 
institution, a declaration of God's eternal purpose, 
that a portion of his creatures should forever re- 
main in that unhappy condition. 

We can form some conceptions of the misery 
and ruin from which this war, successfully prose- 
cuted to the preservation of the Union, has saved 
us. These conceptions Avill be more vivid, if we 
call to mind, for a moment, the fate of the Greek 
republics. At the time of the breaking out of the 
great civil war between them, these republics had 
reached the sunnnit of their glory. Pericles had 
conceived the grand idea of forming them into a 
federal union somethmg like oui's, under one gen- 



OBATIOX. 37 

eral government and a common capital. Had he 
succeeded, the fate of Greece and the story of the 
world for centuries would have been different ; 
but he failed. The selfish and ambitious, the men 
of ordinary talents, but eager for power, felt that 
they would lose influence and position in a united 
Greece ; and so the miserable idea of petty state 
sovereignties prevailed. Instead of forming a union 
that would have been for the strength, the glory 
and the preservation of all, these republics rushed 
into a war, which ended in the exhaustion and 
ruin of all. Our union had already been formed 
under a nobler than Pericles ; and the object, the 
attempt of the war was to break it up. Once 
broken, the two fragments would not long have 
remained entire. 

The very idea upon which many southern men, 
particularly those who were in the army and navy, 
undertake to defend their treason, viz., that their 
State claimed and had a right to their first alle- 
giance, would have compelled them to resist the 
central despotism, by which alone the Confederacy 
could have been held together, when once it became 
independent ; so that soon the States that were to 
compose it would have been fighting among them- 
selves. The northern republic, the glory of the 



38 JULY 4, 18GG. 

old Union gone, its grand inspiration no longer a 
power in the heart, wonld soon probably have be- 
come a prey to internal dissensions, and so all 
over the land there would have been wars and 
fightings, confusion and disaster ; and these would 
have continued and increased till exhaustion came, 
and by the close of half a century, some new 
Philip of Macedon, as in Greece, or some new 
Louis Napoleon, as in Mexico, would have ap- 
peared, and under the mild term of intervention, 
would have seized the liberties of a people, who 
had shown themselves unworthy to possess and 
incompetent to maintain them, and who would be 
glad to accept even despotism, if it brought peace. 
In all the glorious past, there is nothing more 
glorious, no more distinct token of a benignant 
purpose, on the part of the Almighty Providence, 
in regard to the interests of liberty and humanity 
in our land, than the clear triumph of the Gov- 
ernment in our late civil war. That triumph, with 
all its accompaniments, has brought us to a grand 
position before the world and among ourselves. It 
has shown us the power of a free people when 
true, and determined to be true, at any cost of 
sacrifice and effort, to great ideas and principles. 
It has preserved the Union, whose destruction was 



OliATION. 39 

attempted, and made it more stable than it was 
before. It has abolished slavery, and so withdrawn 
the only element that stood in the way of a living 
unity and a hearty nationality among the whole 
people. It has wiped out the one dark spot upon 
our escutcheon, the one terrible inconsistency, which 
alone had been our shame at home, and our re- 
proach abroad. It has amended and improved the 
Constitution of the United States, which, worthy of 
our support before, may now claim the unqualified 
allegiance, the devoted loyalty of our hearts and 
lives, and challenge the admiration of the world. 
It has shown liberty to be a grand and glorious 
thing, a principle and a power, which we may 
well wish to have prevail more and more among 
the nations. 

But our national position, though grand and glo- 
rious, is not without difficulties and troubles, that 
awaken anxiety, and demand the exercise of a 
large political wisdom. 

War always leaves, peace always opens many 
questions that arc to be settled, not by force, but 
by reason and judgment, by mutual forbearance and 
a mutual desire to do that which is right and best. 
The ai»-itation of the waves never ceases the moment 
the storm subsides. And yet with us there has been 



40 JULY 4, 18GG. 

far less agitation tlian might have been expected. 
It is but fifteen months since the war ceased, yet 
never before, I apprehend, did any nation at the 
close of so brief a period, after so gigantic a con- 
flict, find itself in so good condition as this nation 
finds itself to-day. There have been no wide com- 
mercial embarrassments, no great financial crises, 
nothing to bewilder, disturb or arrest the industry 
or enterprise of the country ; but these, with all the 
capital they can command, are putting themselves 
forth in various ways to repair the waste which war 
has caused : and under theh influence many ques- 
tions Avill settle themselves, or rather be settled by 
the force of laws, which passion, prejudice and 
unwise legislation may do something to thwart, but 
cannot utterly annul. 

The Southern people may say, as the newspapers 
tell us they do say, that they will not sell their land 
to the Yankees ; that they will not encourage^ the 
emigration of Northern men and Northern capital. 
It is very natural that they should say this, but 
they cannot " fight it out on this lino." Some will 
try undoubtedly, (it would be surprising if they did 
not,) but whenever it comes to a clear question 
between passion and prejudice on the one hand, 



OBATION. 41 

and interest and progressive wealth on the other, 
interest and progressive wealth will carry the day. 

They will not sell their land to the Yankees ; 
bnt the lands are there, imtilled and unoccnpied, 
with streams, timber, mines, waiting for labor, 
enterprise and capital to unfold their resources 
and make them productive. And these, the incu- 
bus of slavery being removed, will flock in and 
find opportunities, will recei^'e a welcome, and 
produce more and more tlieu- inevitable results, 
and a new order of things will spring up, and 
before she knows it, free Virginia, in wealth, in 
population, in exports, may regain that precedence 
of New York which she held in the old colonial 
times; and many of the Southern States, now poor 
and exhausted, may hereafter, in wealth, in intelli- 
gence, in intellectual and moral power, in all that 
adorns and elevates a community, rival many of their 
Northern sisters, and none will glory in that rivalry 
more than these sisters themselves. 

Undoubtedly, as we learn through the newspa- 
pers, from private letters and various other sources, 
many things are said and done at public meetings, 
at private gatherings and in all manner of ways 

at the South, which indicate that there is still 

4.* 



42 JULY -i, 18GG. 

a large measure of disloyalty there ; a determi- 
nation on the part of many to cherish feelings 
of hatred and and dislike toward the Union and the 
North ; to oppose any improvement in the condition 
of the negro, and keep him as far as possible in the 
condition of serfdom; and, in general, in all possible 
ways to fan the embers of disloyalty, sedition, and 
treason, in the hope that they may be kept alive 
and made to blaze out again in destructive fury. 
This ought not to surprise or disturb. It was to be 
expected ; and when we consider how absolutely 
their hopes have been disappomted, their plans frus- 
trated, and their great enterprise, upon which they 
entered with such boastful confidence, brought to a 
miserable failure, we ought not to expect that there 
should be at once a universal and cheerful acqui- 
escence in such untoward results ; but we in our 
grand triumph should certainly be willing to exer- 
cise a large and patient forbearance toward the irri- 
tations of disappointment. 

Two things which are of essential importance 
are lixcd forever. Slaverv is abolished. The neiirroes 
are free, and though not invested, as many other 
persons are not, Avith what may be called some 
of tlio ])rivileges of citizenship, yet through that 
grand enactment, the Civil llights Bill, they 



OBATION. 43 

are protected and secured in all their essen- 
tial rights as free men : and the enjoyment 
and possession of these rights will bring such 
a sense of manhood and such desire and oppor- 
tunity to improve, that if they remain anywhere 
long or largely in actual serfdom, the fault 
will be chiefly their own. If we will but refrain 
from returning railing for railing, we may safely 
leave it to time, and to other combining and con- 
spuing influences to remote the ii-ritations of dis- 
appointment, to extinguish the scattered embers of 
disloyalty, and, through a better knowledge and a 
better intercourse between them, bring the people 
of the North and South to such mutual respect and 
confidence as shall bind them in strong attachment 
to each other, and to the Union that makes them 
one people. 

Undoubtedly, there are many questions in regard 
to reconstruction, and readmission to political rights, 
and the extent to which deprivation of these rights, 
or other punishment shall be inflicted upon rebels, 
that still remain to be determined, and the determi- 
nation of which, amid the diff'erent opinions that are 
expressed, excites painful anxiety in many minds. 
The difficulties, originally inherent in this subject, 
have been somewhat enhanced by that sad event, 



44 • JULY 4, 18 6G. 

which raised to the Presidency of the nation one 
elected to be its Vice-President. 

Our experience, fortunately not frequent, teaches 
that it is a great misfortune to the nation to have^ 
and a terribly trying position to the individual to 
he^ what has been, improperly yet expressively, 
termed " an accidental President of the United 
States." According to the ordinary custom and 
course of political affairs among us, the person put 
into the Vice-Presidency has commonly little more 
of political distinction or office to expect. lie is 
not so much in the line of succession or advance- 
ment, as prominent members of the Cabinet, the 
Senate, or the House of Pepresentatives. As Vice- 
President, his powers, position and prospects are 
limited; and if, through the death of the President, 
he is suddenly intrusted with " the powers and 
duties of the said office," it is perhaps too much 
to expect, that lie should be so much larger than 
the office, so much stronger and superior to the 
circumstances, as to be able to meet the position 
naturally and simply, without thought of self, and 
with no considerations other than those of the 
public good to influence his action and policy. 

On being thus called to this position, the first 
strong feeling or consciousness of the individual must 



OBATioy. 45 

be, that he was not elected to it by the suffrage of 
the people, that it was not expected that he would 
have to fill it, that there is perhaps a general 
feeling of regret that he has been summoned to it ; 
and this is naturally followed by some questioning 
as to how far the sympathy and confidence of the 
party that elected him will gather to his support ; 
while immediately there are indications more or less 
distinct, — and sometimes very distinct, — that the 
opposite party regard him with more sympathy and 
confidence than they did his predecessor, and far 
more than they ever expressed for himself previ- 
ously, and stand, waiting and anticipating, ready to 
welcome any such changes of policy as will enable 
them to give him their party indorsement. The 
next step, in the succession of emotions, is the feel- 
ing that it does not become his dignity, or his 
talents, or the great powers and interests intrusted 
to liim, to be the mere heir-at-law, as it were, 
simply the executor of his predecessor's policy and 
plans ; and so he begins to diverge from these, 
and diverges more and more, till at length, the 
divergence from the principles and policy of the 
friends, who elected him to the Vice-Presidency, 
becomes so great, that there is nothing left for him 



46 JULY i, 186G. 

but an attempt to have a policy and a party of 
his own. 

I can conceive of no position in any govern- 
ment, certainly there can be none in our own, 
attended with so much personal discomfort, so 
full of trial, temptation and difficulty as that of a 
President, inducted mto his high trusts and duties, 
by such an event as brought the present incumbent 
to the chair of state. The very difficulties of his 
position give him a peculiar claim to all that chari- 
table and forbearing judgment, which we arc con- 
tinually called upon to exercise toward all men in 
public and political life. Such judgment we should 
endeavor to exercise toward him, though we may not 
be able to approve or indorse all his acts, or 
disposed to relinquish our adherence to those prin- 
ciples of policy, which we conceive to be of essential 
importance in the present exigencies of the coimtry. 

This policy and all the matters connected with 
reconstruction belong, I suppose, upon the theory of 
our Government, specially, if not exclusively, to its 
legislative rather than its executive department ; 
and we may confidently hope, I think, that the 
policy of Congress, if it need modification, will be 
60 modified, will be made so just and wise and 



OBATION. 47 

generous as to secure the confirmation of the Pre 
sident, and. be approved and uphekl by the people. 
The only desire, which any thoughtful, dispassionate 
person can have, in regard to all the points involved 
in the question of reconstruction, is that they 
should be so settled as to promote the safety of 
the country, prevent the initiation of any future 
rebellion, and efface, as flxr and as fast as possible, 
all traces and all sources of sectional strife and dis- 
cord. No man can desire that anything should be 
done, that any deprivation should be prolonged or 
any punishment inflicted, in the mere spirit of vin- 
dictiveness. 

In all cases of this kind there are two points, 
two extremes, to be avoided : undue lenity on the 
one hand, undue severity on the other. The lesson 
of history teaches that the mistake, which all rulers 
are apt to make, is that of undue severity. We, 
I apprehend, are in no danger of error in this 
direction. AYe are the most good-natured peo- 
ple in the world ; it is one of our great faults 
that we immediately feel a strong sympathy for the 
criminal, a tender compassion for the wrong-doer, 
the moment he gets within the grip and grasp of 
the law. The fact that fifteen months have passed 



48 JULY 4, 1SG6. 

since the close of a rebellion, which, all thmgs con- 
sidered, must be regarded as the most gigantic polit- 
ical crime on record, and yet no one has been tried, 
convicted or punished, is pretty conclusive testimony, 
that there is nowhere any spirit of vindictivcness or 
cruelty, on the part of the people or their rulers. 
Multitudes have been pardoned, but no one has 
been punished. 

The o-reat militarv chief of the rebellion, — a 
man whom the United States Government had edu- 
cated, supported, honored and trusted, whose antece- 
dents and position gave that government the strongest 
claims to his unswerving allegiance, and whom history 
will hold largely responsible for all the barbarous 
cruelties inflicted upon Federal prisoners, — this man 
is, and has been for some months, quietly acting as 
the President of a college ; has been permitted, as 
a paroled prisoner of war, to take charge of 
the education, the formation of the characters of 
the young men of the nation ! I may challenge 
the records of all the civil wars of the world, to 
2)resent a parallel to such leniency, to adduce an 
mstancc in ^^lli(•ll the great military commander of 
an organized rebellion, of four years' duration, was 
permitted, without trial or punishment thereon, to 



ORATION'. 49 

glide quietly into a position of sucli trust, honor and 
responsibility, as that of the head of a literary and 
educational institution. 

I have no desii'e that any one should suffer the 
extreme penalty, which under the law attaches to the 
crime of treason ; but for its moral influence upon 
the country and the world, it does seem to me of 
the highest importance, that through the indictment 
of some one, a crime so great as this rebellion should 
be brought to solenm iind unsparing legal investiga- 
tion, and that there should be, on the records of the 
highest tribunal of the country, a verdict of guilty and 
a sentence of condemnation. That verdict reached, 
that condemnation declared, I care not then what 
clemency the government may exercise. God for- 
bid that we should thirst for any man's blood ! 

Everything points to the late President of the Con- 
federacy, so called, as the individual against whom 
these grave legal proceedings should be mstituted. 
Moreover, this man stands before the country charged 
by the present President of the United States, in 
a solemn proclamation issued under the seal of 
State, with complicity in that foul conspiracy which 
accomplished the assassination of his predecessor, 
and attempted that of other important members of 
the United States Government. One would not 

5 



50 JULY 4, 18GG. 

have that arch-traitor, the head of the rebel Con- 
federacy, treated with personal injustice. Personal 
and national honor alike forbid the President of the 
United States to keep the grounds, upon which this 
grave charge was made, much longer among the 
secrets of the executive archives. The charge 
should either be withdi'awn, or brought to legal 
investigation, or the fixcts upon which it was made 
should be published to the world, that the world 
may pass its moral verdict thereon. 

Some measure, some limited, temporary measure 
of political deprivation of political rights, as a po- 
litical punishment for a political crime, would seem 
to be deserved by the rebels, and imperiously de- 
manded bj the safety and honor of the country. 

I am not statesman enough, and certainly not 
enough of a politician, to understand the nice dis- 
tinctions that have been made between " re-construc- 
tion " and " restoration," between rebel States being 
"in" or "out" of the Union; nor have I been able 
to get at the idea, under a government like ours, 
of a State as an entity, independent of the people 
who compose it. Through some mental or moral 
defect, it may be, I have only been able to reach 
to this general idea, which I supposed was an 
axiom of all civil polity; namely, that armed and 



OB AT I ON. 51 

organized rebellion pnt everything at hazard. If it 
succeed it gains all ; if it fail it loses all — all 
that it had, all that it sought ; and its vanquished 
instigators are at the discretionary disposal of the 
government that subdues them, have no rights but 
to be treated in such way as mercy, wisdom, judg- 
ment, humanity may dictate, and the best interests 
of the nation, whose life they have imperilled, and 
whose peace they have outraged, may demand. 

If this be not an axiom in civil polity, a principle 
inherent m all civil government, I see not how there 
can be any security against frequent rebellions or 
insurrections. If our fathers had failed in their great 
revolutionary struggle, and had at length said, " We 
submit, we withdraw and annul our Declaration of 
Independence, we admit your right to tax us without 
representation, but we claim our old colonial charters 
and all the rights secured to us by those charters," 
Great Britain would probably have laughed at the 
idea, declined the proposal, and made answer, " Your 
colonial charters : you broke, violated, forfeited these, 
when you undertook to rebel and be independent. 
You have no claim now, even to your old colonial 
rights, and we do not think it is safe to trust you 
with them at present ; we do not wish to encourage 
another rebellion among you. When your loyalty is 



52 JULY 4:, 18G6. 

clearly re-established, when it is e"\'ident that you are 
and mean to be good citizens and subjects, Ave will 
restore your charters and all your colonial priAoleges, 
but not till Ave arc satisfied on this point." This, 
which Great Britain might have said to our fathers, 
which any government, from principles inherent in all 
governments, may say to vanquished rebels, our own 
goveniment has a right to say to the people and 
States lately in rebellion against it. 

This right must be admitted, or we must admit, 
that the war, on the part of the government, 
was wrong from the beginning ; and this position 
leads, by a swift and irresistible logic, to the anni- 
hilation of the Federal Government, and the intro- 
duction of anarchv into the countrv. That somethino' 
of this sort may and nuist be said is, I believe, 
admitted by all, except perhaps the rebels them- 
selves. In fact, something of this character has 
already been said, and what more is necessary 
will be said ; a just measure of individual and 
temporary deprivation of political right will be 
awarded, and the Executive, the Congress and the 
People will uphold it, and tlie world will commend 
it as just and wise and right : and under its influence 
the country will work its way out of these present 
difficulties, and enter upon that career of glory 



ORATION. 53 

which is before her, — a career so grand, that imag- 
ination fails and falters in attempting to form an 
adequate conception of it. 

Never had any other people a future before them, 
making such demands upon their energies, their ambi- 
tion, their highest aspirations. No thoughtful and 
reflecting mind, baptized into the spirit of faith in a 
divine purpose and providence guiding the educa- 
tion and destinies of the race, can refuse to cherish 
the conviction, certainly the hope, darkened it may be 
by occasional doubts, but never sinking into despau', 
that here, in this country, beneath the influence of 
our civil and religious liberty, our social institutions, 
and the grand opportunity offered by this broad, new 
continent, there is to be a development of humanity, 
a progressive social life, such as has been nowhere 
exhibited in the world before, corresponding in its 
fruits of intelligence, comfort, happiness, in the large- 
ness of its spirit and form, its beauty and power, to 
the largeness of the scale, on which nature here dis- 
plays itself in our mountains, lakes, rivers and bound- 
less prames. In every mind, that has ever cherished 
it, that hope must be stronger and brighter to-day 
than it ever was before. 

Our material prosperity is all but inevitable. Situ- 
ated in the temperate zone, an immense territory, 



5 J: JULY 4, 186G. 

stretching from north to south more than t\yo thou- 
sand miles, and from east to west across the conti- 
nent, from ocean to ocean, with a wide variety of 
chmate, soil, productions, with mineral wealth of 
every kind and of incalculable amount, with a net- 
work of rivers, navigable and fertilizing, spread over 
that wonderful Mississippi basin, whose annual har- 
vest might almost feed the race, our country has such 
material resources, is such a miniature world in itself, 
that nothing but the most reckless obstinacy and per- 
severing folly can prevent its material growth and 
prosperity. 

Its very condition at this moment, as it emerges 
from a costly civil war, carrying, as if it were a 
feather's weight, an amount of debt which would 
crush many other nations, is at once a testimony 
to its recuperative energies, and a prophecy of its 
future progress. Everywhere there is hope, cheer- 
fulness, enterprise, and revelations, more and more 
distinct, of the exhaustless resources and the mighty 
productive power of the nation. Soon a ship canal 
in our own territory will leave Niasrara still a thins: 
of beauty and grandeur, but no longer an obstacle, 
and put our navigation of the great lakes in a con- 
dition not to be easily disturbed. Some, who hear 
me, will live to see the completion of that gigantic 



OltATIOX. 55 

project, a railroad across this continent. In its 
domestic nses and benefits, the effect of this upon 
our internal development and progress cannot be 
over-estimated ; while as a connecting link, a short 
direct route between Western Europe and Eastern 
Asia, it will, in all probability, become a great high- 
w^ay of traffic and travel between these two great 
centres of Christian and heatlien civilization. Should 
this be the result, it will so materially change the 
relations between them, that the commercial index 
on the dial-plate of time will point pretty distinctly 
to an hour, wdien the metropolitan city of our own 
country will take precedence of London, as the mon- 
eyed and commercial centre of the world. 

But there is something much more important to a 
nation than its material wealth and grandeur. These 
can only secure it a short-lived existence ; they will 
be but sure precursors of its ruin, unless accompanied 
by a moral development, an intellectual culture and 
strength, that shall enable the people to resist their 
temptations, and use prosperity and power for high 
and noble purposes. Intellectual and moral culture go 
together ; they cannot bo widely separated ; the for- 
mer necessarily carries with it a large amount of the 
latter ; and the intellectual and moral culture of the 
people of this country must be regarded by every 



56 JULY 4, 18GG. 

patriotic mind as the first thing to be secured and 
the last to be neglected : worthy of every effort and 
sacrifice, of the most patient labors, and of the most 
costly contributions we can make to it. 

This culture must be universal and progressive for 
these are the conditions of our liberty. It must reach 
to the highe^st, that it may be then* inspiration and 
glory. It must reach to tlie lowest, that it may be their 
resource, their defence, their incentive ; add to thek 
dignity, enlarge their honor, and guide their power. 
Two ideas, the one narrow and the other false, which 
have been recently advocated with more ability than 
they deserve, must find no acceptance among us. 
"We are educating too much," it is said: "reading, 
writing, arithmetic, the simplest rudiments of knowl- 
edge, are all that is necessary for the mass of the 
people. More only unfits them for their position and 
their duties." The mass of the people ! AVho shall 
dare thus to separate himself from the mass of the 
people, and maintain that the education, which is 
necessary and good for him, is not good for all to 
wliom it can l)e offered? This mass is perpetually 
shifting its particles ; the poor of to-day are the 
rich of to-morrow, and the rich of to-day the poor of 
to-morrow, and the intellectual and moral culture that 
is good for any is good for all. Unfits them for theii* 



OBATIOJSf. 61 

position and duties ! Is there any position in which 
ignorance is better than knowledge? or whose duties 
stupidity can better discharge than intelhgence ? Show 
me one person, who has more education than he can 
use to advantage in his position, one person, who has 
been too highly educated for his own happiness, 
honor and usefulness, or for the good of the com- 
munity ; and for that one person, I will bring you 
an army of an hundred thousand persons, whom the 
same education has made happier, nobler, more use- 
ful, lifted them up, and enabled them to help lift up 
the community in all things good, worthy and desira- 
ble. Go into some humble dwelling in this city, 
wdiose support is the daily toil of the father, (it may 
be in some very humble occupation,) and you will 
find perhaps that the oldest daughter is attending 
our Girls' High and Normal School. Are we doing 
that family and the community an injury by giving 
that daughter so good an education? Are we doing 
her an injury by developing her mind by all the 
knowledge imparted, and her heart by all the influ- 
ences that surround her at that school? I maintain 
that the chances are ten thousand to one, that this 
dau"-hter is a beam of moral sunli"-ht in that dwell- 
ing, — its ornament, — its defence, — its incentive, — 



58 JULY 4, 18GG. 

its glory. She is introducing to it, it may be, better 
principles and habits, a higher tone of thought, feel- 
ins: and conduct. She is better fitted every way to 
discharge the duties of her position, to meet both 
the temptations and the opportunities that may come 
to her in life ; and should she ever have a home of 
her own, whether it be humbler or higher than the 
one she now fills, she will make it a home of intel- 
ligence and virtue ; and the more such daughters in 
the same position m life we can so educate the 
better, the safer for the community. 

" But no," cries the advocate of the false idea, 
"intelligence and virtue do not go together; education 
increases the ini^enuity, but it docs not diminish the 
amount of crime ; and the records of the courts show 
that many persons brought into them as criminals 
have had the highest advantages of education;" and 
so, because Satan Avas once an angel of light, the 
light should be put out and all live in darkness ; 
for that is the amount of the argument. Because the 
Avisc arc sometimes weak, because the educated are 
sometimes criminal, education must be limited. It 
is a false argument, for the fiiilure of some should 
never forbid the eff'ort of any or all. As a general 
statement, it cannot be true that the nearer men 



OBATION. 59 

approach to their Maker in one of his attributes, 
knowledge, the farther they recede from him in 
another, goodness. Education is an incalculable good; 
all who have received any measui-e of its benefits 
and blessings, feel it to be a good. It is the power 
that has raised man from ignorance to knowledge, 
from barbarism to civilization, and carried him for- 
ward continually to a more advanced civilization, a 
more glorious social condition ; and, therefore, the 
the higher we carry it, the more we extend and 
diffuse it, the better for our country and the world. 
AVe at least in this country, (to use the expression 
I have used once before this morning,) " we must 
fight it out on this line." We cannot go back. Our 
idea is that of freedom. AVe have determined that 
every man is and shall be free m this land ; and 
freedom has no security, no defence, protection or 
safeguard but education, and that moral power and 
prmciple which education brings ; and this education, 
to preserve our freedom and accomplish oui- purpose, 
must be broad, generous, universal and progressive, 
must keep pace with our material growth and pros- 
perity, so that the nation may be morally as strong, 
wise, pure and noble, as it is great, wealthy and 
powerful. 



GO JULY i, 1866. 

Friends and fellow-citizens, let me relieve yoiu* 
patience by saying in conclusion, that no extent of 
territory, however large ; no amount of material 
prosperity, however grand ; no intellectual and moral 
culture even, however advanced and widely difFusecJ, 
can give us all that we need to fulfil the great mis- 
sion that is before us. These things are necessary 
ingredients, but there must be something to unite, 
to bind them together. They are incidental ; they 
may make a country, but they cannot make a nation. 
What is necessary to make a nation, and that nation 
powerful and permanent, is a spuit of nationality, 
living and breathing in every heart, binding all to 
common ideas, principles and interests, to a common 
purpose and destiny. Thus considered, nationality is 
as glorious, sublime and powerful a sentiment, as it 
is sweet, lonely and venerable. AVe of all people 
should have a spu'it of nationality : the grandeur of 
oiu" country as it came from the hands of God de- 
mands it ; our condition, prospects, privileges and 
opportunities demand it. Let it be everywhere cul- 
tivated and cherished, let it swell and breathe in 
every soul, binding all these millions of hearts, from 
the ^^•aters of }onder bay to the city of the Golden 
Gate, into one great national heart, that shall live 



OH AT I ox. 61 

and throb with love and loyalty to all that our Hag- 
symbolizes, to all that the (constitution secnres, to all 
that libert}^ means, to all that humanity desii'es and 
would achieve, then this Great Ilepublic, which, but 
yesterday, the despots of Europe thought was crum- 
blmg to pieces, shall rise again like a giant to in- 
struct, overshadow and outlast them all. 



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